Thanxgiving Thoughts

“A day late and a dollar short” is how some of my teachers in high school described me.
So I may be late to the online Thanxgiving Day party, but we had a great time with new friends from Russia with whom were a delight to share their first traditional American Thanxgiving dinner!

Plus they helped decorate our Christmas tree‼️  But like a putz, I forgot to take pictures in process of us decorating, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

We are so blessed that even the poorest among us are the envy of much of the world.  Even with all our problems in the USA, people still flock to our shores and boundaries in hopes of the freedoms that we are slowly forfeiting.

If there is one thing to be thankful for in all of the messy world, it is that God came in the flesh, lived, loved and taught us what He expects from us.  Then He died to show us how just He is, He rose from the dead to show how powerful He is, and He ascended to Heaven to make intercession for us poor sinners to show us how much He still loves us.

Check out Bible Gateway for the real story of history past and history future.
love and prayers,
c.a.

The Mid-Tribulation Letter from One Who Missed the Rapture – from “The Mark” by Tim LaHaye/Jerry Jenkins

To: The beloved tribulation saints scattered to the four corners of the earth, believers in the one true Yahweh God and His matchless Son, Jesus the Christ, our Savior and Lord.
From: Your servant, Tsion Ben-Judah, blessed by the Lord with the unspeakable privilege of teaching you, under the authority of His Holy Spirit, from the Bible, the very Word of God.
Re: The Dawn of the Great Tribulation

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
As is so often true when I sit to write to you, I come in both joy and sorrow, with delight but also with soberness of spirit…  And I always thank God for the miracle of technology that allows me to write to you all over the world.
Though I have met few of you personally and look forward to that one day, either in the Millennial Kingdom or in Heaven, I feel deeply that family bonds have been created by our regularly sharing the deep riches of Scriptures through this medium.  Thank you for your continued prayers that I will remain faithful and true to my calling and healthy enough to continue for as long as Father gives me breath.
I ask that all of you who have volunteered to translate these words into languages not supported by the built-in conversion programs begin that immediately…
Glory to God for news that we have long since passed the one-billion mark in readership.  We know that there are many more brothers and sisters in the faith who are without computers or the ability to read these words…  Hundreds of thousands join us every day, and we pray you will tell more and more about our family.
We have been through so much together, I say this without boasting but with glory to God Almighty: As I have endeavored to rightly divide the Word of Truth to you, God has proven Himself the author over and over.  For centuries scholars have puzzled over the mysterious prophetic passages in the Bible, and at one time I was one of those puzzled ones.  The language seemed obscure, the message deep and elusive, the meaning apparently figurative and symbolic.  Yet when I began an incisive and thorough examination of these passages with an open mind and heart, it was as if God revealed something to me that freed my intellect.
I have discovered, strictly from an academic approach that nearly 30% of the Bible (Old and New Testaments together) consists of prophetic passages.  I could not understand why God would include these if He intended them to be other than understandable to His children.

While the messianic prophecies were fairly straightforward and, indeed, led me to believe in Jesus as their unique fulfillment, I prayed earnestly that God would reveal to me the key to the rest of the predictive passages.  This He did in a most understated way.  He simply impressed on me to take the words as literally as I took any others from the Bible, unless the context and the wording itself indicated otherwise.
In other words I had always taken at its word a passage such as, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Why then, could I not take just as straightforwardly a verse which said that John the Revelator saw a pale horse?
Yes, I understand that the horse stood for something.  And yet, the Bible said that John saw it.  I took that literally, along with other prophetic statements (unless they used phrases such as “like unto” or others that made it clear they were symbolic).
My dear friends, the Scriptures opened up to me in a way I never dreamed possible.  That is how I knew the great Seal Judgments (Revelation 6) and the Trumpet Judgments (Revelation 8–9) were coming, how I was able to interpret what form they might take, and even in what sequence they would occur.
That is how I know that the Bowl Judgments (Revelation 16) are yet to come, and that they will be exponentially worse than all those that came before.  That is how I knew that these plagues and trials were more than just judgments on an unholy and unbelieving world.  That is how I knew that this whole period of history is also one more evidence of the long-suffering, loving-kindness and mercy of God.
Believers, we have turned a corner.

Skeptics – and I know many of you drop in here now and then to see what we zealots are up to – we have passed the point of gentility.  Up to now, while I have been forthright about the Scriptures, I have been somewhat circumspect about the current rulers of this world.
No more.  As every prophecy in the Bible has so far come to pass, as the leader of this world has preached peace while wielding a sword, as he died by the sword and was resurrected as the Scriptures foretold, and as his right-hand man has been imbued with similar evil power, there can be no more doubt.
Nicolae Carpathia, the so-called Excellency and Supreme Potentate of the Global Community, is both anti-Christian and Antichrist himself.  And the Bible says the resurrected Antichrist is literally indwelt by Satan.  Leon Fortunato, who had an image of Antichrist erected and now forces one and all to worship it or face their own peril, is Antichrist’s false prophet.  As the Bible predicted, he has power to give utterance to the image and to call down fire from heaven to destroy those who refuse.

What is next?  Consider the clear prophetic passage in Revelation 13:11-18:
“Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down on the earth in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of man: his number is 666.”

It won’t be long before everyone will be forced to bow the knee to Carpathia or his image, to bear his name or number on their forehead or right hand, or face the consequences.
Those consequences?  Those of us without what the Bible calls the mark of the beast will not be allowed to legally buy or sell.  If we publicly refuse to accept the mark of the beast, we will be beheaded.  While it is the greatest desire of my life to live to see the Glorious Appearing of my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, at the end of the Great Tribulation (a few days short of three and a half year from now), what greater cause could there ever be for which to give one’s life?
Many millions of us will be required to do just that.  While it conjures in us age-old self-preservation instincts and we worry that at that hour we will be found lacking courage, loyalty and faithfulness, let me reassure you.  The God who calls you to the ultimate sacrifice will also give you the power to endure it.  No one can receive the mark of the beast by accident.  It is a once-for-all decision that will forever condemn you to eternity without God.
While many will be called to live in secret, to support one another through private markets, some will find themselves caught, singled out, dragged into a public beheading, to which the only antidote is a rejection of Christ and a taking of the mark of the beast.
If you are already a believer, you will not be able to turn your back on Christ.  If you are undecided and don’t want to follow the crowd, what will you do when faced with the mark or the loss of your head?  I plead with you to believe, to receive Christ, to envelop yourself with protection from on high.
We are entering into the bloodiest season in the history of the world.  Those who take the mark of the beast will suffer affliction at the hand of God.  Those who refuse it will be martyred for His blessed cause.  Never has the choice been so stark, so plain.

God, Himself, gave a name to this three-and-a-half-year period.  Matthew 24:21-22 records Jesus saying, “For then there will be Great Tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect’s sake [that’s you and me, believer] those days will be shortened.”
In all God’s dealings with mankind, this is the shortest period on record, and yet more Scripture is devoted to it than any other period except the life of Christ.  While the Hebrew prophets referred to this as a time of “vengeance of our God” for the slaughter of the prophets and saints over the centuries, it is also a time of mercy.  God goes to extreme measures to compress the decision-making time for men and women before the coming of Christ to set up His earthly Kingdom.
Despite that this is clearly the most awful time in history, I still say it also a merciful act of God to give as many souls possible an opportunity to put their faith in Christ.  Oh, people, we are the army of God with a massive job to do in a short time.  May we do it with willingness and eagerness, and the courage that comes only from Him.  There are countless souls in need of saving, and we have the truth.
It may be hard to recognize God’s mercy when His wrath is also intensifying.  Woe to those who believe the lie that God is only “love.”  Yes, He is love, and His gift of Jesus as the Sacrifice for our sin is the greatest evidence of this.  But the Bible also says God is “holy, holy,…holy”  He is righteous and a God of justice, and it is not in His nature to allow sin to go unpunished or unpaid for.
We are engaged in a great worldwide battle with Satan himself, for the souls of men and women.  Do not think that I lightly advance to the front lines with this truth, nor understanding the power of the evil one.   But I have placed my faith and trust in the God who sits high above the heavens, in the God who is above all gods, and among whom there is none like Him.

Scripture is clear that you can test both prophet and prophecy.  I make no claim of being a prophet, but I believe the prophecies.  If they are not true and don’t come to pass, then I am a liar and the Bible is bogus, and we are without hope.  But if the Bible is true, next on the agenda is the ceremonial desecration of the temple in Jerusalem by Antichrist.  This a prediction made by Daniel, Jesus, Paul and John.
My brothers and sisters of Jewish blood, which I proudly share, will cringe to know that this desecration will include the sacrificing of a pig on the sacred altar.  It also includes blasphemy against God, profanity, derogatory statements about God and Messiah, and a denial of His resurrection.
If you are Jewish and have not yet been persuaded that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and you have been deceived by the lies of the Antichrist, perhaps your mind will change when he breaks his covenant with Israel and withdraws his guarantee of Israel’s safety.  But he shows no favoritism.  Besides reviling the Jews, he will slaughter believers in Jesus.  If this does not happen, label me a heretic or mad and look elsewhere than the Holy Bible for hope.

Thank you for your patience and for the blessed privilege of communicating with you again.  Let me leave you on a note of hope.  My next message will concern the difference between the Book of Life and the Lamb’s Book of Life, and what those mean to you and me.
Until then, may you rest assured that if you are a believer and have placed your hope and trust in the work of Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins and for life everlasting, your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  And it can never be erased.
Until we meet again, I bless you in the Name of Jesus.  May He bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, and give you peace.

Your servant, Tsion Ben-Judah

Perspective Matters – Wordless Wednesday

Resolving Some Confusion Over Gender Identity

There are several myths about gender identity that have found their way into the mainstream press and “woke” culture and academic circles, mostly influenced by LGBTQZXCB+ radicals that tend to think with parts of their anatomy below their waists.  Dr. Samuel Ferguson of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has penned an excellent and compassionate text on this subject, Does God Care About Gender Identity.  He addressed five of these myths in an article in Crossway.com which is available at this page.

To summarize his excellent book and articles on these myths, let me simply note that no amount of “feelings,” psychological counseling, cultural adaptation or surgical procedures will change the DNA of an XX or XY chromosome that is inherent in every cell of a human body.

Tragic stories continue to surface of people who attempted “transitioning,” many at very young ages, who later are regretting and dealing with the aftermath of making major life-decisions when they had not developed the mental and psychological equipment to adequately process them.  “Transitioning does not offer a promising pathway toward wholeness and happiness. It is a cosmetic solution to a psychological and spiritual malady.” (Ferguson)

Gender is not merely a “feeling.”  As Ferguson asks in his book, “What if a sixteen-year-old trying to buy a six-pack of beer blurts out to the vigilant clerk, ‘But I feel twentyone’? What if a fifty-year-old man pursuing a sixteenyear-old girl says to her father, ‘But I feel sixteen’? What if a white male applying for a scholarship designated for African Americans responds to the university examiner, ‘But I feel black’?”  It is simply an absurdity to divorce gender from biology, just as inane as divorcing age from chronology or ethnic identity from skin pigmentation or genealogy.  The notion that being a man or a woman is reducible to feelings is a radical departure from sanity. As Mark Cahill wrote, “Truth is what reality says it is.”

The saddest part of this is that it has permeated our society to such an extent that a Supreme Court Justice nominee could not answer a Senator’s question, “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman?”  so she(?) said, “I am not a biologist.”  Did she not have access to a dictionary??  The next day the nominee came back and declared she and her mother were women!  The Senator failed to ask the critical questions of how she knew this!  Had a biologist informed her?  Had she finally looked it up at Dictionary.com⁉️

When the Bible speaks to gender identity, it does so in unequivocal terms. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Nothing here about binary nor questionable nor fluid identity.  If you are born with a penis and XY chromosomes, you are a male; if you are born with a vagina and XX chromosomes, you are a female.

“Moreover, Scripture reveals the two-gendered world of men and women as anything but restrictive and oppressive. ‘At its very heart,’ writes Rebecca McLaughlin, ‘the male-female binary is creative.’  Only through the union of man and woman is the cultural mandate fulfilled – “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.“ ‘ (Gen. 1:28). By God’s design, every human being owes his or her existence to one man and one woman: the gender binary is life-giving.“ (Ferguson)

When people speak of the “sex or gender they were assigned at birth,” they are trying to suggest that it is subject to a decision we make.  Our gender is neither assigned to us by a doctor at birth nor determined by ourselves during adolescence (with rare exceptions).  Genesis 1 teaches that gender is received as a gift from God, that human identity is not self-made but God-given.

Christ-followers will lovingly help anyone experiencing gender dysphoria regardless of age, but the current fad among many medical professionals is to move as quickly as possible to transitioning, a process involving puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgeries. These are irreversible steps, and results are so varied that many European countries and finally some staes are limiting the access of minors to treatments.

The Bible’s pathway out of pain takes the form not of transition but transformation, and this makes all the difference.  Transformation doesn’t begin with our outer appearance but much deeper, with our minds and hearts: ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind’ (Rom. 12:2). Transformation doesn’t culminate in a cosmetic refashioning of our bodies but in God’s resurrection and perfection of them: ‘we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.’ (Rom. 8:23) (Ferguson)

From LifeSiteNews:
“Even Marx, Lenin, and Mao would be horrified by the Democrat Party’s unconditional embrace of the chemical and surgical mutilation of children in pursuit of the fantasy of an imagined “gender identity.” At least they would be until they came to see, as the Democrats have, its political utility.“

“Transgenderism, at its root, is an attack by radical leftists on the family. It is promoted by political operatives in order to divide children from their parents on matters sexual. But if it succeeds, it won’t stop there. There will be other “children’s rights” invented until all parental authority has been ceded to the state, thus achieving the perennial communist goal of making all children creatures of the state from infancy.“

Be Ready! Jesus IS Coming Soon!

Dear reader, things are moving at lightning speed in developments of Artificial Intelligence, CBDCs and digital money, the Pope calling for a global authority in the Vatican’s “secretive” Synod, the mixture of unrest and peace in Israel and the broader mid-East, rumblings of war from Ukraine to Taiwan to India to Afghanistan and all across the African continent, the EU and USA dealing with political polarization and unregulated immigration crises.

Time is winding down to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. All the key pieces for a one-world government under a man who has all the answers for our global problems are rapidly coming together!

What could stimulate the attraction of the world to one man who will lead the New Order the World Economic Forum envisions?  I will suggest the answer* later in this blog.

The most clear and detailed look at the Book of Revelation (aka The Apocalypse) can be found free online at The Patmos Project under the tab for The Gold Mine, a text written by Dr. James Christie, updated in 2020. Today I want to call attention to Chapter 7, Survivors, available as a word document on my pages, all 10,000 words of it.

Dr. Christie says in this chapter, “I rather expect that my conclusions about Revelation will please no one. I have not ‘landed’ in any traditional, ‘pre-millennial’ camp, as it were. There will not be many readers who will say, ‘Yes, this is exactly what we believe.'” 

However, I think Dr. Christie is too harsh on his self-assessment, because, “Yes, this is exactly what I believe!” This blog presents a condensation of one chapter of The Gold Mine, dealing with the last seven years of earth history according to The Revelation of Jesus Christ to one of Jesus’ dearest friends when He was on earth, the Apostle John.

To lay the foundation for Dr. Christie’s (and my) view of the end-time events that are about to unfold in history, we recognize, “The Lord is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) The One True God will make every possible effort to save humanity from the destruction of sin’s effects and the devil’s devices.

There are soon coming seven years of what Jesus and John call “The Great Tribulation.” (Matthew 24:21, Revelation 2:22, and 7:14)  There are three differing views of when Jesus will come in relation to this seven-year period.  Dr. Christie explains:
“You may recall that early in this chapter I noted three different views of when the rapture would happen: pre-tribulation (before the tribulation); mid-tribulation (in the middle of the tribulation); and post-tribulation (at the end of the tribulation). The reason that there are three views is that as people study Revelation and the rest of the Bible, the matter is not exactly clear. There are verses and statements found in support of all three views, which has led to the development of different ‘camps’ of [end-times-teaching]. But what if they are all correct?“

This has become my view.  God does not want anyone to go to hell!  “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23)  The God Who Is who revealed Himself to Moses as the I AM, the Creator of the universe and all of us, and who has most clearly revealed His love and holiness in Jesus, is going to make every effort to save us from our sins and the devil’s destruction.

Soon He will collect anyone who has put their faith in Him and prepared for Jesus’ return prior to the beginning of God’s judgments on the earth.  These start with the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse,” the first being a man who will conquer the world (the Beast or Antichrist), the second being a time of violence such as the world has never seen, the third being an economic holocaust, the last being war, famine and disease that will result in the death of one-forth of those still living on earth. (Revelation 6:1-8)

*This collection (called the pre-tribulation rapture) of those who are preparing for Jesus to return will cause untold panic around the world as every nation on earth will have people who disappear in “a twinkling of an eye,” or as rapidly as lightning flashing from east to west. (1 Corinthians 15:52,  Matthew 24:27)  This will be the event that will usher in a man who will seem to understand.  He will speak words of peace, assure the world of a path to universal prosperity and cooperation, and seem the logical choice for global leadership.

For three and one-half years, this world ruler will collect all government power under his umbrella promising peace and security, but will actually be the cause of the second to fourth horses.  It is likely that he will seem to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, somehow convincing Jordan and the world’s Muslims to allow reconstruction of the Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah, the current site of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

However, after 1,260 day (42 months) from his ascension to world power, he will come to the new Hebrew Temple and enter the Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the structure where the Jews believe God’s Presence resides.  He will declare himself divine, immortal and require the global community to worship HIM! 

This will mark the middle of the Great Tribulation when The God Who Is will again collect (called the mid-tribulation rapture) all who have come to faith in Him during the first half of this period. (Daniel 11:31, Matthew 24:15-18, Revelation 13:5)

It will also be at this time that the Jews will recognize that Jesus WAS their Messiah, a truth they have resisted persistently since their leaders first lied about His resurrection. (Matthew 28:11-15)  The Jews’ rejection of the Antichrist’s claim to be god will mark them for annihilation, a more thorough genocide than the Holocaust of WW2 (Revelation 13:16-17).  Though some will survive, along with non-Jews who resist the Antichrist, most will be martyred. 

At the very end of the seven-year Tribulation period, Jesus will collect (called the post-tribulation rapture) these final survivors who will join Him as He returns to earth to set up a New Kingdom that will last for the next 1000 years (referred to a the Millennium). (Revelation 20:1-6)

These are not empty philosophies of ancient wise men nor fantasies nor made-up legends like elephant-headed gods nor personal visions.  As surely as Jesus fulfilled over 100 specific prophecies about His first appearance on earth, He will come again and fulfill the rest of the Bible’s prophecies.  Note, there has never been a credible refutation of any of the Bible’s prophecies that in the past predicted certain events.

I encourage you to prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. (James 5:9, Revelation 3:20)
Maranatha, even so, Lord Jesus, come.

A Prayer for Growing Older

Lord, you know that I am growing older.

Keep me from becoming talkative and possessed with the idea that I must express myself on every subject… except in my blogs.

Release me from the craving to straighten out everyone’s affairs… especially their driving.

Keep me from the recital of endless detail.  Give me wings to get to the point!

Seal my lips when I am inclined to tell of my aches and pains.  They are increasing with the years and my love to speak of them grows sweeter as time goes by.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I am wrong… however rare that may be.

Make me thoughtful but not nosy; helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom and experience, it does seem a pity not to use it all, but you know, Lord, that I want a few friends with whom to go to Heaven.

In Jesus name, Amen!

I wish we’d all been ready.

Cool Movie! Check it out at Redbox or from your local library! Wordless (almost) Wednesday

The Case for Christ movie is a period piece from the 1970s when Lee Strobel, an investigative reporter and legal editor for the Chicago Tribune decided to “prove” Christianity was based on a hoax of the Resurrection.  Available at Redbox.
Spoiler alert: By the time he was done searching for the truth, he became a follower of Jesus.

One Heartbeat Away – The Good News

Flatlining…

The Good News?  We’re all gonna die and there’s nothing we can do about it.  But there is more to this story!  After we die, what will happen? (Note: all unattributed quotes are from Mark Cahill.)

Yes, the Good News is that we will not live in this world with all its divisions, wars, hurricanes, landslides and wildfires forever.  There will come an end to gluttony, lust, greed, wrath, sloth, envy and pride, the seven deadly sins.  The despair and apathy of lives around us will either lead them to accept the free gift The God Who Is offers, to live eternally in love, light and holiness in a new world with Him, or carry them to a final separation from Him.

Chapter 7 in Mark’s book, One Heartbeat Away, introduces us to this Good News that we do not have to suffer endlessly in this life until we get out by dissolving our personalities into “the infinite.”  Nor do we have to work tirelessly to make sure we have enough good “stuff” on our résumé to outweigh the bad “stuff” that would result in condemnation.

No, as last week’s blog about the Bad News concluded, ““For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.” (Romans 2:12-13)  NONE of us will be good enough when we face God in the first five minutes after we die. But there is Good News! There is One who provided a way, and even said of Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

“We cannot, and will never be able to change God’s perfect standard. Jesus is called the perfect sacrifice who paid the penalty for all sin once and for all... Buddha said at the end of his life, ‘I don’t even know if there is a God. I am still searching for truth.’… The Koran… quotes Mohammad as saying, ‘I am in need of forgiveness.’”  But Jesus claimed He was the Truth. He said He could forgive our sins. He claimed to be the gate to Heaven, the door to eternal life.

C.S. Lewis points out:

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Mere Christianity

Remember, the search for truth is always narrow. The sum of 2+2 is 4 and nothing else; there is only one person who is the president of a university and eight billion others who are not; a man or woman is determined by the XX or XY chromosomes of their genetic make-up and nothing else. “What is true is what reality says it is.”

Cahill presents an interesting illustration in a conversation of how we can get into Heaven and not be separated from the Source of every good thing at the end of our lives:

“‘If someone left the security tag on your jeans and you walked out of a department store, what would happen?’ He replied that the alarm would go off. I said, ‘Here is a word picture for you. Imagine that the gates of Heaven have sensors and as you walk through, only one thing will set them off. What would that be?’ His answer was, ‘My sin.’ I said, ‘Exactly. But if all your sins have been forgiven and washed away, can you enter those gates once you walk off planet earth forever?’ His eyes suddenly lit up and he said, ‘Yes!’”

Acts 4:11-12 says, “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” To Timothy, the apostle Paul wrote, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

John wrote in his biography of Jesus (which takes a little over an hour to read):

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

John 3:16-21

When Jesus was crucified, two thieves were executed beside Him. One criticized Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” The other admitted his guilt and asked Jesus just to remember him when Jesus would enter His Kingdom. Jesus told him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (See Luke 23:39-43) The point of this passage, Cahill says, is to show that we do not get into Heaven (paradise) by being good, but rather by putting our faith in Jesus, believing that He is the Son of God as He claimed to be.

In the chapter, ‘The Next Step,’ Cahill explains how we express our faith (trust) in Jesus for our eternal destiny.  It is at once the simplest and the hardest thing for us to do.  “We repent, we turn away from our sins and towards God, rethinking or reconsidering what we’ve been thinking and doing in the light of what He wants us to think and do.”

However, “Being sorry you got caught at something is not repentance… [It is] a change of heart and mind.  A change in what you want to do… When you repent there is a visible change in your life.”  But the change is not entirely up to us, as though now that we have expressed trust in Jesus, we have to be good in our own strength.  When we express genuine faith in the cleansing work of Jesus, He comes along side of us to help us stop behaviors that we loved doing before.  He helps us hate the sins we once enjoyed and shows us that His way of living is more satisfying than anything our sins offered.

The final step is the decision.  “Whether you are young or old is not determined by your age, but by when you die… If you are 18 and you are going to die a week from now, then relative to your lifespan, you are old… You don’t know if you are old or young, no matter what age you are.”

Keep in mind that receiving Jesus and following Him is not about “life-enhancement.”  You may sometimes fall to temptations; you will still face problems; you may even be persecuted.  Old friends will wonder what happened to their good buddy and ‘sensible’ neighbor.  “Remember, never accept Jesus just to improve your life in this world.  It is not about getting things in this life but about being right with the God we will stand in front of [within those first five minutes after we die]” .

“What you truly believe drives you to action.” 
What will you do with the evidence that we were created by Someone for a purpose? 
What will you do with the evidence that the Bible IS the revelation of God’s Word? 
What will you do with the evidence that good works will not be enough to clear our guilt? 
What will you do with the evidence that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world?

If you are inclined to make a decision to follow Jesus, or if you just want to discuss the evidence, feel free to go to my contact page and reach out to me, or you can email Mark Cahill at mydecision@markcahill.org.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”  John Adams
“Truth is what reality says it is.”

One Heartbeat Away – The Bad News

The Bad News: We’re all gonna die and there’s nothing we can do about it. But there is more to this story! After we die, what will happen? Where will you be five minutes later?

“One day I realized that I couldn’t just create the God I wanted. God is not an exercise in imagination, or visualization or mind projection. He exists independent of my thoughts about Him.” (Mark Cahill; All unattributed quotes are his.)

All the evidence we have examined so far in Mark Cahill’s book, One Heartbeat Away, reveals that there is Someone who created us and that He is best discovered in the Bible. “There is no book in history that has been more reliably preserved and translated than the Bible. There is no book in history that has more power to change the human condition than the Bible.  There is no book in history that is more important for knowing the God Who Is than the Bible.” (c.a.post, Is the Bible God’s Word)

In ‘The Flames, The Flames,” the 4th chapter Mark’s book, he points out the suddenness of death and the impossibility of predicting that moment for any person. According to a recent Barna group survey, 76% of Americans believe there is a Heaven, but a majority believe you go there by being a good person. Heaven is pictured as a wonderful playground where we will get to enjoy our friends and families filled with endless fun and pleasure. Most think its whole purpose is personal enjoyment. “But if everyone is thinking selfishly of himself, doesn’t that sound a bit like life on earth?” I suggest reading a comprehensive theology of Heaven by that title by Randy Alcorn. Heaven will be wonderful… for those who arrive there in the first five minutes after they die.

In contrast, only 32% of Americans believe in a literal hell, an actual place of torment. “John Lennon’s song asks us to imagine ‘no hell below.’ But just because we don’t like the idea of hell does not mean it does not exist.” Remember our first mantra from Cahill’s book, “What is true is what reality says it is.”

The Bible, the most authoritative book about our Creator and His design, makes it clear that He thinks there is a hell to be avoided. Ahh, you say, but God is love! Cahill points out that while this is true, He is also just.

“Imagine a man in a courtroom who is a liar, a thief, a murderer and a rapist. But some people stand up and testify that he was a good next-door neighbor; he kept his yard clean, he looked out for other people… went to work on time… You and I both know that there is no way a good judge would let him off… he must make a just ruling.” Genesis 18:25 reports Abraham asking, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

In ‘The Bad News’ chapter, we find the dialectic that even “good people” have done bad things. While we may argue that we are not as bad as Hitler or Osama bin Laden or Putin, we are all guilty of violating several of the Ten Commandments, which is God’s standard for letting us into Heaven. Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever stolen something? Have you ever lusted in your heart? Have you ever cursed using the LORD’s Name? Have you ever been angry without a good reason?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are guilty before God… just like me. Do you think He will just issue a pass for being a liar, a thief, an adulterer, a blasphemer, or a murderer? Though we may not have physically committed adultery or murder, Jesus said that doing these things in our hearts make us just as guilty… just like Jeffrey Dahmer or Billy Graham or Mother Teresa.

In Cahill’s chapter, ‘It’s The Law,’ he asks, “What is the separating factor that will put us in one place or the other place for all eternity?” Won’t God judge us by our “scorecard?” If our good works outweigh the bad, won’t that be good enough? Ask the thief in the prison. “The Law of God leads us to discover that we will be guilty on Judgment Day so that we will begin to seek a way to go from ‘guilty’ to ‘not guilty.'”

“Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian (schoolmaster) until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:23-24)

“It’s amazing to realize every one of us is guilty by the standard God has set. Even if I try to ignore my sin, it doesn’t mean God will.”

Ted Koppel, former host of NBC’s Nightline, said in an address to Duke University, “What Moses brought down from Mount Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions. They are commandments. ‘Are,” not ‘were.’ The sheer brilliance of the Ten Commandments is that they codify, in a handful of words, acceptable human behavior. Not just for then, but for all time.” A navy lawyer once told me that all the laws on all the books in all the countries of the world are simply a testimony that we do not obey the Big Ten.

Cahill goes on in the chapter, ‘It’s The Law,’ to enumerate each of the Ten Commandments and provides a good exegesis of each. How many of the Ten Commandments can you list from memory⁉️️ Test yourself before looking them up in my page, The Big Ten, or the Bible. If you do not have a Bible, you can go to https://biblegateway.com and select from a pull-down menu from many different versions of the Bible. My go-to is either the ESV (English Standard Version) or the NASB (New American Standard Bible) because these are the most accurate word-for-word translations without becoming too cumbersome with literal translation. Many prefer, and Cahill references in his book, the King James Version (KJV) which is also very good, but it is not in the common language we use today, although it was in 1611.😉

So the Bad News is that we are all gonna die. Even worse, none of our good works are going to take away the judgment we deserve. “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.” (Romans 2:12-13) Where will that leave you five minutes after you die?

But there is some Good News, which we will explore more in our last blog on One Heartbeat Away.  “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 6:23)